2012 Christmas on Las Olas

The annual Christmas on Las Olas celebration, in downtown Fort Lauderdale, was bigger than ever this year. I say that only because I found the streets more crowded than I can remember. To see a larger version of this photo and a few more crowd shots from tonight, visit design215.com/photos/misc/lasolas2012_9347.

Steve Aoki @ Club Cinema 2012

Tonight I went to Club Cinema in Pompano Beach, FL and filmed DJ Steve Aoki jumping from the second level balcony into an inflatable kiddie pool held up by the crowd!! This was the second time I've done video of Steve Aoki and he always puts on a good show. Last time, I didn't get any good footage of his balcony jump because I was behind the stage. This time I positioned myself on the opposite balcony so I could have a good view of the action. It still wasn't easy. The club was so packed that I sandwiched between people that were constantly jumping up and down and pushing against the railings. I have no idea how I managed to hold the camera as steady as I did.

Nikon D7000 camera with Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G DX lens. ISO 1600. Zoom Digital Recorder.

12th Planet at Revolution Live

Wandering around downtown Fort Lauderdale, I ended up at Revolution Live for the 12th Planet show. I took this shot with my Nikon D7000 and 10.5mm fisheye lens. This fisheye is becoming one of my favorite lenses. It has a much wider field of view than my 12-24mm f/4.0 and I have several aftermarket plugins for Photoshop that can correct the distortion inherent with fisheye lenses, if I want to do so. The fact that this an f/2.8 lens makes it quite versatile.

Nikon D7000 with Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. Exposure: f/2.8 1/4s ISO 800.

2010 Ultra Music Festival Photos

I just finished posting all of my best Official Ultra Music Festival photos from 2010. Over the next few weeks, I'll be uploading my best pictures from previous years, back to 2005. The entire collection will be a visual history of Ultra. I've posted many pictures over the years but they were always in different places- MySpace, Flickr, and so on. This new collection is well organized, uses friendly URLs, and each photo has its own link. If you didn't make it to Ultra last year, you can also view my best Official Ultra Music Festival photos from 2011.

Free Facebook Timeline Cover Photos

Recently, I switched to Facebook's new Timeline Layout. While I certainly don't like everything about it, I LOVE being able to put a big, panoramic image at the top of my page! What photographer wouldn't like that? I started going through all of my favorite photos and cropping them to 850 x 315, which is the exact size they need to be if you don't want any weird cropping or resizing when you upload them to Facebook.

After I made a bunch of cover photos for myself, some of my Facebook friends asked me if they could use a couple of them on their pages. I said, "Sure! Why not?" All of my cover photos have my credit in the bottom right corner so really, its free advertising for me. A few more people asked me if I had specific images of this or that, and I went back through my archives and made a couple of custom covers for them. Finally, I added a section to my web site where you can download ALL of my Free Facebook Cover Photos that I've made so far. If you have an idea for a Cover Photo you'd like to see, send me a message on Facebook and I'll see what I can do. =)

Scarlett's New Year's Party

For the second year in a row, I was hired to photograph the New Year's Party at Scarlett's Cabaret in Hallandale, Florida. It was a crazy night and I had a lot of fun. Yes, Scarlett's is a strip club, but during their New Year's Party, there are no strippers. Instead, there are go-go dancers, fire dancers, stilt walkers, midgets, and people in crazy costumes mingling with the crowd. The photo above is an example of one of the costumes. Although I did a little post processing to this image, I took the photo at the club, shortly after midnight.

If you want to see more of my photos from this event, try this link to Scarlett's Facebook album. If that link doesn't work, you could visit Scarlett's Facebook page and look for the album.

Steve Aoki at Club Cinema 2011

Wednesday, I was invited to shoot Steve Aoki at Club Cinema. I photographed DJ Aoki at the Ultra Music Festival earlier this year. Club Cinema in Pompano Beach used to be a multi-screen movie theater before it was converted into a club several years ago. As you can see, its a fairly large venue. For this video, I used my Nikon D7000 with a Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens. I also used a Zoom H2 digital recorder for the sound. Unless its been a big, multi-camera production for television or film, I haven't seen anyone else capture the live sound at these events. This is probably because the music is so loud, it overpowers most built-in mics. After a little trial and error, I learned how to set the levels on the H2 and I think the live sound is so much better than simply adding some random music track to the video later.

The Poe Toaster

Every year on Edgar Allan Poe's birthday, a mysterious figure known as The Poe Toaster, sneaks into the Westminster grave site and leaves roses and half a bottle of cognac on Poe's grave. This photo shows the last remaining Poe fans waiting outside of Poe's grave to get a glimpse of the Toaster. It was 13 degrees outside. One by one we succumbed to the cold and retreated to the warmth of our homes, hotel rooms, or vehicles. No one saw the Toaster. Happy Birthday Edgar!!

Edgar Allan Poe 200th Birthday

Edgar Allan Poe fans gather in Westminster Hall for Edgar Allan Poe's 200th Birthday celebration in Baltimore, Maryland. To learn more about Poe or read some of his famous short stories, visit www.Poestories.com.

Minivan Crash on A1A

No, I didn't crash! I was driving home from Miami just before sunrise as I usually do on Monday mornings. When I reached A1A and Sunrise Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale, I saw a couple of police cars parked in the middle of the street with their lights on. It was 6am and the sun was just starting to create an orange glow on the horizon. It was quiet. There was no traffic yet. I pulled over to the side of the road and started shooting pictures of the scene. There was no ambulance and no signs of any injuries. Both airbags in the minivan were deployed. Maybe the driver had already been taken to the hospital or maybe he fled on foot. I thought it was odd that police cars were blocking the entrance to Birch State Park, which is just to the right of where I'm standing. News Helicopters arrived and circled above. By the time I left, morning traffic was being diverted away from the scene. People heading south on A1A were forced to turn around and head back north. Luckily I was already inside of the road blocks and continued home to write this blog. =)

Nikon D200, ISO 400, F4 @ 1/60

My Artwork at Vagabond

I stopped by The Vagabond in downtown Miami to see some of my artwork which is on display there.

Artwork by Robert Giordano, from left to right:
"Love is Pain",
"Inverted Torso",
"Conductance", and
"Appetite for Convolution".

Techno Sluts

Jackal and Hyde on the main stage.

I was invited to shoot the "Techno Sluts" show at Voodoo Lounge in Fort Lauderdale on Friday, September 26. I've been to these shows before but this one was amazing. In a few days I'll have a gallery of photos from the event on my myspace.

Visuals by Psyberpixie. DJs Andy Laplegua, Infiniti, and Danny Bled. Fetish performances by Rubberdoll and Rebecca's Rubber Room. Piercing play by Jason. Hosted by Joe Freedom.

Fort Lauderdale Beach Underwater

Well, for a day anyway. These are a few pictures of Fort Lauderdale beach between Oakland Park Blvd. and Sunrise Blvd. There was no storm that I'm aware of and I didn't see anything about it in the paper.


Yes, I'm standing in the water. Why do people keep asking me that, lol?


The surfers were enjoying the day. No one else seemed too concerned. I remember this happening a few years ago before they built the low retaining wall. The beach ended up in the road. This time, most of the sand stayed on the beach.

I shot these pictures during high tide, around 6pm. I set my alarm and woke up the next morning before sunrise for the next high tide but nothing unusual happened. Later that day, the beach looked normal again.

Scaffold Rescue in Fort Lauderdale

On the way back to my office, I saw a number of Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue vehicles stopped at the White Egret condominium so I decided to investigate. Something broke or malfunctioned on a scaffold and two workers were left holding on for their lives, fifteen floors up. One was still holding on to the scaffold while another was dangling in mid air, held up by his safety line. As I arrived, a Fort Lauderdale fire engine was raising its ladder to begin the rescue. Firefighters were also in the building and on the roof. See more photos on Design215.com

Allie's Birthday Cake

I went with Sedna to her friend Allie's birthday party. Naturally I have tons of "snapshots" showing Allie and everyone having fun and being silly. However, for my Photo of the Day, it has to be the cake. =)

Happy Birthday: Allie